


kickstart my heart.

by MercutioLives



Series: Becommissar Week 2k16 [1]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercutioLives/pseuds/MercutioLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one really knows why soulmate tattoos exist, just that everyone gets one eventually. Kommissar has just received hers, much to her disappointment. When she sees a young American woman on television whose mark matches hers, she isn’t sure she likes it. (Becommissar Week Day 1: Soulmate Tattoos)</p>
            </blockquote>





	kickstart my heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This is late by about two hours, and I’m not sure if it’s any good, but I’m posting it anyway. It’s also my first Becommissar fic ever, so there’s that. (Sidenote: I shamelessly headcanon Kommissar as trans, but I didn’t really make a thing of it in this fic because I didn’t think it was necessary.)
> 
> Crossposted to my personal [Tumblr](http://jacklaurens.tumblr.com/post/143362956805/kickstart-my-heart).

Luisa frowned at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she washed off her makeup. Her neck still prickled and burned around the jet-black mark that now stood out starkly against her fair skin: a thick, black band circling her neck, with either end meeting at the hollow of her throat in a shape like a sideways eye around her shaved-down Adam's apple. It looked like a tattoo, but wasn't made with ink. In fact, no one knew exactly how or why these marks appeared, only that everyone got one eventually: it was a great unsolved mystery of human biology, and Luisa wasn't precisely sure that she cared. The sciences had never been her strong suit. What she cared about was the fact that, somewhere in the world, there was a woman whose mark matched her own, whom she'd never met. That woman, whoever she was, would be her soulmate. When they met, if they ever did, they would fall in love and spend the rest of their lives together. Or so she'd heard. She'd never known anyone who had actually met their soulmate, with the exception of her parents, who fought all the time and were rarely ever home at the same time because of their careers.

In all, Luisa didn't find the system to be very useful, and as each birthday passed by with her skin empty of black markings, she felt a sense of relief that she didn't have to deal with it.  _ So much for that _ , she grumbled inwardly as she lightly touched the eye-shape with the tip of her index finger. It wasn't painful, per se, but it was uncomfortable. She wasn't worried about that; everyone said that the new mark would sting for a day or two before it settled completely. That was all there was to it: now that she had one, it was decidedly anticlimactic. She was just one of the billions on Earth who went through life, hoping to one day see a tattoo that matched their own. A knock on the bathroom door startled Luisa out of her thoughts. She shut off the tap and opened the door to see Pieter in the doorway, looking impatient.

"It's about time," he griped, though his lips quickly curled up into a smirk. "What was taking so long? I was beginning to think you'd fallen in the toilet and drowned." Luisa rolled her eyes and swatted his bicep.

"Shut up. I was taking my makeup off. Unlike you, I care about my skin." Pieter made a noise that suggested he was only humoring the excuse, but said nothing else as he nudged her out of the way and shut the door behind him. She went out into the living room and flopped down onto the sofa, stretching her legs out with a sigh. It had been a long day, and she was glad to finally have time to relax. Turning on the television, she flipped through the channels until she settled on what she quickly recognized as an a cappella performance on one of the American channels Pieter insisted on having. The group was very small, made up entirely of women, and their style was quaint but nothing special. It didn't surprise her to learn via the commentary that it was a university group. One by one, each of the singers received a close-up, ending with the group's leader - at which point Luisa felt her heart stutter.

She was a short, mousy brunette, and her throat bore a black mark that was an exact copy of Luisa's own. The commentator revealed the woman's name to be "Becca Mitchell", and she felt her heart sink. Such a common name would make it impossible to find her on the internet. Still, she continued to watch, even after Pieter came out of the bathroom and pushed her legs aside to sit next to her.

"What the hell is this?" His tone was one of disgust, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see his broad nose wrinkling. He reached for the remote, but she hissed at him to leave it.

"The girl in the middle, with the brown hair. She's - look at her neck." She couldn't bring herself to say the word; it felt ridiculous and childish to call a complete stranger one's soulmate. Pieter would understand what she meant. His own mark was on his right forearm, a circle with several lines of varying lengths coming out from it like sun rays.

"Well," he chuckled, patting her leg (she'd thrown them across his lap after he sat down), "at least you know you have something in common. Sort of. Are you going to look her up?" Luisa shrugged, adjusting one of the throw pillows under her head. She didn't want to seem to eager - and by rights, she shouldn't have been, what with her generally cynical view of the whole "soulmate" thing - but they both knew that her answer was  _ definitely _ .

After the show was long over and Pieter left her on the couch to go to bed, Luisa turned on her laptop and Googled the group: the Barden University Bellas. (A silly, infantile name; if they met, she'd have to talk to her about that.) The first link was the group's Facebook page, and the second was their page on the Barden University website. The latter listed, to Luisa's delight, all of the members, both current and past. At the very top was a photo of the woman she'd seen, minus the tattoo. "Beca" with only  _ one  _ C, then: that would make her eventual Facebook-stalking attempt a bit more manageable, hopefully. Never in her life had she believed she would be in this position, looking up some complete stranger from across the globe on Facebook. It made her feel like a freak, but it didn't stop her from trawling through page after page of Beca Mitchells until she found the one she was looking for.

The profile photo looked old compared to the one from the Barden site, and her last post was from almost a year ago. Frustrated, Luisa closed the tab and settled for watching videos of the Bellas on YouTube until she started to nod off. A brief glance at her computer clock told her it was well after 2:00 in the morning, so she made herself turn off the machine and go to bed.

Over the next few weeks, working with Das Sound Machine kept her busy enough that she didn't have time to think about Beca Mitchell at all. They had several performances in the coming months, and as their captain and manager, Luisa demanded absolute perfection. She'd settle for nothing less from herself or her team. Most of the time, she choreographed Pieter's arrangements, and they always ran rehearsals together. DSM were eighteen strong, which sometimes made things tricky to manage, but they had been working together for years and had one another's habits, strengths, and weaknesses committed to memory. She made sure that their routines were always challenging, always pushing them to work harder and be better than before, and the results never disappointed. There were few things in life more satisfying than success.

"Lulu, I have something interesting for you," Pieter said in a teasing sing-song after one of their rehearsals, to which Luisa replied with a grunt, without looking up from her phone. The lack of response didn't put him off: he simply kept talking. "Your American is in some trouble."

"What do you mean?" She finally looked up, brows furrowed. Her stomach fluttered, which she found annoying.

"See for yourself. It's amazing, honestly. Just when I thought Americans couldn't get any more ridiculous." He handed her his phone, the browser open to a news article detailing what was most likely one of the most embarrassing blunders she'd ever heard of. She rolled her eyes and passed the phone back.

"There's no way that's real. You need to stop believing everything you read."

"Oh, it's real alright. It's all over YouTube. Here, I'll show you." The list of things Luisa could have gone her entire life without seeing was fairly short, but it had just increased by one after sitting through a video of a mediocre a cappella performance culminating in an accidental flashing. She thought the audience's reaction was a bit extreme, considering it was very clearly an accident, but Americans were weird like that. Pieter, who was snorting with laughter, tried in vain to compose himself. She shooed him away and put her earbuds in so she could pretend she was listening to music while she tried to find more information on the Bellas' mishap.

Roughly a week later, there was an email in her inbox offering Das Sound Machine the chance to tour in the United States as replacements for the Barden Bellas. The email didn't go into much detail about the circumstances, stating only that the Bellas were no longer able to tour. DSM had been the reigning European champions for the past three years running, and while Luisa wondered why they were being reached out to rather than another American group, she didn't think it would be a bad experience. She sent out a mass text, and the response was unanimously in favor. For most of them, Luisa included, it would be their first time visiting the United States. She slept through most of the eleven-hour flight, but near the end she sat awake, trying not to rub irritably at her tattoo while she failed at not thinking about Beca Mitchell. She knew that the incessant jangling of her nerves was more about what Beca represented than the actual woman herself - they hadn't met, so there was no way Luisa could judge how she would feel about her - but it was so easy to conflate the two.

They landed just after 5:00 in the morning, though their bodies were still on Berlin time, and by the time they arrived at their hotel, Luisa crashed immediately without bothering to remove her makeup or do more than take off her jeans. Sara, who was rooming with her, didn't even get that far. In the morning, they were both a mess, but a hot shower and a decent breakfast helped get them back on track. People stared at the group of eighteen black-clad Germans, all chattering excitedly about their upcoming tour. Their first venue was a Volkswagen car show, and although Luisa cringed inwardly at the way American English butchered the pronunciation, she maintained a professional front: when she was working with DSM, she was not Luisa, but  _ Kommissar _ .

The performance itself went up without a hitch, as expected, but as applause erupted around them, her eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar strange face up in the balcony area. Pieter must have seen her as well, because she felt his hand lightly touch her wrist. She looked at him and gave a sharp nod. It was happening: she was about to meet her soulmate.

"Barden Bellas!" she greeted in a tone of mock-surprise, switching flawlessly to English, though she couldn't keep her eyes from the tattoo on Beca Mitchell's neck. "You came here to see us?" The moment of realization on the American's face mirrored the one Luisa must have made nearly a month ago, when she saw her on television for the first time. Still, she reminded herself not to get carried away.

"Is it because you are…what do the American kids say? 'Jelly'."

Beca wasn't the first to speak up. Instead, it was the red-haired girl next to her. Luisa paid her no attention; it was easy to make it seem like it was because she was too good to do so. She continued addressing Beca, who finally retorted, bragging that the Bellas would kick DSM's ass at Worlds. Luisa perked up and stepped closer until the two of them were nearly chest-to-chest. Beca was much shorter than she looked on television; Luisa didn't usually date short girls, but maybe this time would be an exception.

The banter continued, with Pieter eventually taking the helm to mock the girl whose accident had brought them here in the first place. In the meantime, Luisa and Beca didn't once break eye-contact. So close, she could feel her neck prickling like it had when her mark had first appeared. In a whisper so low that only Beca would hear, she murmured:

"We can meet later, ja? Alone." Beca's response was a barely-perceptible nod. With a faint twitch of a smile, Luisa lifted her voice once more to make a parting insult, and proceeded to lead DSM away. She heard Beca call after her in an awkward attempt at having the last word, and elbowed Pieter when he snorted.

"Well? What do you think?" he asked, shifting back into German.

"We're meeting later. We'll see."

Meeting Beca felt like breaking the law. It was surreptitious and agitating; Luisa's every nerve was on end as she waited. In the dim of the bar not far away from the car show venue, every relatively short girl with brown hair was the one she waited for, until she wasn't, and it didn't take long for disappointment to set in. Was she being stood up? It wasn't as if that hadn't happened before, and for all that she kept reminding herself that this whole soulmate thing was bullshit anyway, she was keenly aware that she'd stopped believing that a while ago. She was just getting up to leave when Beca pushed through the bar crowd and plopped onto the stool next to hers.

"Sorry I'm late, I was getting the third-degree from Chloe and she wouldn't let me  _ leave  _ and  _ God _ , you're gorgeous." The words tumbled out of Beca's mouth without a pause for breath, as though they had been waiting impatiently to come out and were now tripping over themselves to escape. It was endearing.

"It's okay, I understand. Your friend, she would not like it if she knew you were coming to see me. I'm glad you still came." Beca's cheeks reddened, and she floundered a bit before stammering out a drink order to the bartender when he asked if she wanted anything. Luisa took a sip of the martini she had been nursing since her arrival.

"So… We're… You know." Neither of them seemed willing to say the word. "I don't even know your name yet."

"It's Luisa, though when we are performing I am called Kommissar."

"That's kinda weird and terrifying-sounding, but I guess that's the point. Anyway, I'm Beca." Luisa smirked a bit, but refrained from saying  _ I know _ . "I hope you're not disappointed."

"What would I be disappointed about?" The statement caught her off-guard. She tilted her head in confusion, and her hair, loose from the severe bun of earlier, shifted across her shoulders with the movement.

"That, you know, I'm not as insanely beautiful and tall and impressive as you. Let's be honest, you're  _ way  _ out of my league."

"Don't be silly. We are different people with different lives; it's foolish to compare us. Besides, I rather like that you aren't tall. You are like…a tiny mouse. Very cute." In a moment of daring, she reached out to tap Beca's nose with her forefinger, eliciting a startled laugh from the other woman. It felt like a bubble had burst between them, and the tension was slowly draining. Beca hopped down from her stool and nodded toward the dance floor.

"Wanna go dance?"

"Absolutely, Tiny Maus." Grinning, Luisa followed Beca out onto the floor. She still wasn't completely certain if this whole soulmate thing would work out, but at least it was off to a decent start.


End file.
